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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 09 2014 : 10:51:50 PM
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For quite a few years now, samadhi has been seeping into daily life. Over the past 6-9 months it has stabilized and become much more common than "separation consciousness".
In fact, sometimes days go by without a break. But then I snap back into separation and life becomes full of suffering.
The issue I'm having is that I don't notice that a change has occurred. I'll just wake up in separation and it doesn't even register that there's been a change. And then I need to remember how to get back to samadhi.
Its never obvious how to do, but usually there's an occurrence in life that reminds me how to do, like a lesson through events that brings suffering.
I expect samadhi to continue to increase. But I wonder if I'm missing something. Is there something that's knocking me out? Or is it just a natural process of back and forth.
When there is samadhi, I'm completely happy. When there's separation I'm completely unhappy.
Its pretty obvious which state I'd prefer ;)
For clarification, I'm not talking about full on dissolution into oneness losing the body, but its samadhi just the same. |
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kami
USA
920 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2014 : 07:18:15 AM
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Hi TTN,
What exactly do you mean by samadhi?
Samadhi usually denotes a state, and therefore, temporary. Unless you mean sahaja samadhi, which really means resting as awareness. Perhaps you mean the latter?
If it is indeed sahaja samadhi you are referring to, then resting as awareness only means that we are not identified as the me. It is not that this awareness was not present before. It was obscured by the continuous concerns of the "me". When we step out of this with the knowing of "I am not that me, but the clear present awareness in which everything happens", that results in sahaja samadhi. However, the distinct characteristic of this sahaja samadhi is that it is merely a mirror, reflecting all that arises, with no grabbing on to the pleasant or pushing away the unpleasant. Everything is allowed, including all the unpleasant sensations, because of the firm realization that I am not the one that suffers.
Even after the initial seeing of our true nature, habitual thoughts do come up (vasanas), with their associated reactions. I would say that because of the allowing, it feels that the things that arise are more intense, and seemingly never-ending. At times, it is at a subtle level and at other times, the seduction to get identified as the one that suffers is strong.
Firstly I would suggest to stop resisting it. Let it arise, just allow it, embrace what arises. Resisting (not the arising itself) is a sign that the realization is not complete. What can possibly happen to the "me" that only exists as a concept? Secondly, refrain from labeling as good/bad, suffering/not, pleasant/unpleasant. Can you see that it is only the "me mind" that labels? Thoughts and sensations that arise never come with pre-specified labels. They just come and if not labeled and given a story, they leave quickly, sometimes for good. Make it a story and you've given them a long-lasting home. 
Every time you find yourself getting pulled into the story, pause and remember your true nature. This can be a samyama like practice, by consciously and repeatedly coming back to that remembrance..
Hope this is of use. 
Love.   |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2014 : 11:39:38 AM
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Thanks Kami, great descriptions.
Yes I understand these elements, but it's become clear that I must refine my practice. Vipasyana meditation is the obvious next step.
Keep coming back to what is now, total acceptance. Smrti which is mindfulness. A very powerful practice but only really useful if one is anchored in silent awareness.
I would like to engage in more discussion on Smrti here. We talk around it quite often at ayp, as in accepting what is. Now its time for me to really engage in Smrti. Smrti for days;)
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Ayiram
88 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2014 : 12:42:38 PM
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quote:
Now its time for me to really engage in Smrti. Smrti for days;)
ha,ha...sorry for the interruption TTN, but I couldn´t resist not to say that in my language, Croatian,"smrt" means "death"...
but actually those two notions are very much connected - death and mindfulness - coz dying means having nothing and that´s all we can really have...and what leads us to "our true nature", to quote Kami |
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adishivayogi
USA
197 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2014 : 8:45:45 PM
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| you walk around and live daily life without breathing? prana is always traveling up the sushuma without hitting a single nerve and the ajna knot is never there and energy is always going through the center of your head? what youre calling samadhi is most likely not samadhi. samadhi is when you stop breathing. at first this will only happen while youre sitting and may never be brought into daily life..who knows it is possible. Lahiri did it, sothey say. A breathless yogi |
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kami
USA
920 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2014 : 10:30:55 PM
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Hi TTN,
Smriti literally means "to remember". So what you say makes perfect sense - remembrance of our true nature on a constant basis is indeed sahaja samadhi. Interesting you bring up vipassana. Do you practice it? Personally, I have not found much difference between DM and vipassana-type meditation in terms of effects. What I do find these days is the need to let go of all techniques and "just sit". Probably more in the style of Adyashanti's True Meditation. Introducing mantra or awareness of breath feels forced and laborious. Perhaps it is just a phase.. This type of "meditation" happens all day, smriti aiding the process. There are periods of identification with a story, but as soon as it is just allowed as in sitting, it dissolves..
Ayiram, how perfect that smriti sounds like death!! Remembering our true nature is gradual death of "I-ness"
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Ayiram
88 Posts |
Posted - Apr 13 2014 : 07:12:36 AM
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Hi Kami,
quote:
Introducing mantra or awareness of breath feels forced and laborious. Perhaps it is just a phase..
I´ve been there as well...In my case,it is an on and off phase, but a phase that is helping me realize that all of my meditation practice should be as effortless as breathing...every time I get in that phase I drop every technique and just enjoy the silence...
PS: I hope that´s not a scenery...
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Edited by - Ayiram on Apr 13 2014 07:24:35 AM |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Apr 13 2014 : 9:40:10 PM
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Yes if you're already in samadhi, the mantra seems forced. I think the whole point of entraining the mind on the object is to wake up the nervous system and occupy the mind so we fall into samadhi. But if you're already there what's the point?
Thoughts? |
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Radharani
USA
843 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2014 : 11:26:42 PM
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Dear Tonightsthenight,
Funny story:
A few years ago my reality suddenly changed, the monkey-mind shut up, the burden of the self was removed, and everything was totally, utterly Perfect. Absolute sense of Freedom and continual Bliss in the awesome presence of God. Not a care in the world, no desires, no lack, no worry. This had (or so I believed at the time) occurred as a result of practicing Heart of Yoga technique, which I had just learned. So, I was still in this body, what shall I do with the rest of my time here? I was already teaching yoga, and I realized that now all I wanted, was to become a HOY teacher.
When I investigated it, though, I saw on the HOY website something about "This Teacher Training applies X number of hours towards the Yoga Alliance RYT certification." ?! It appeared that HOY required Alliance certification which I was unable to obtain. So here I am left with only ONE desire on earth, and it's unattainable. Damn!!
I contacted HOY and was told, "Don't worry, just come to the training. The Alliance certification is not necessary."
My husband and I traveled up to New York to attend the HOY Intensive Teacher Training. There were about a dozen students and we each got to tell our "story" of our background, why we were there and what we hoped to accomplish. I told my teacher what had happened and the fact that I now had an unfulfilled desire. He laughed and said, "So now you're like, 'Oh sh*t, I've lost my samadhi!" The way he said it and the expression on his face was hysterical (my teacher is extremely funny).
Then he explained in a more serious tone, "That's why I don't appreciate people like Eckhart Tolle talking about 'enlightenment' as a goal to be attained. The seeking itself is the problem; it necessarily implies that you don't already have it, that you must strive to become something you're not. Something that can be obtained can also be lost. Don't even worry about it. Just do your yoga practice! Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel without attachment or judgement. Everything is fine. Everything is perfect."
and so it is. We both became HOY teachers. The ebb and flow of life continues, with the waves on the surface and the undisturbed awareness in the deep. There's nothing to lose and nobody to lose it. There's just the incredible Love of God, right here, with every breath, closer than our own heartbeat. The yoga practice helps us to stay in that awareness and if we get distracted it brings us right back.
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Govinda
USA
176 Posts |
Posted - Apr 20 2014 : 12:51:30 PM
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Namaste, tonightsthenight
May you all have a lovely, meaningful and joyous Easter Day, everyone! There have been some wonderful comments in this thread. Kudos, folks. I honestly don't know if I've anything worthwhile to add... or not. So, why do I choose to reply? Some urge arose and here it comes.
quote:
Originally posted by tonightsthenight
In fact, sometimes days go by without a break. But then I snap back into separation and life becomes full of suffering.
The issue I'm having is that I don't notice that a change has occurred. I'll just wake up in separation and it doesn't even register that there's been a change. And then I need to remember how to get back to samadhi.
Only when mind is active and thoughts are defined by sequence and meaning is applied, does anything have it's value as an idea or solidified set of conceptualizations. Obviously, when our mind is wholly still, only eternal silence abides. This is one way of seeing Samadhi. No observer, no ideas, no thoughts whatsoever... only an awakened consciousness resides. What it is awakened to, is beyond words. But as we each experience in deepest meditation, it's very nature is sheer ecstatic-bliss or what could be referred to as "Self-Realization", "God-Consciousness" or even devotionally, as "Divine Rapture".
From this side of the looking glass, there is indeed a world of difference betwixt Savikalpa Samadhi, Nirvikapla Samadhi and Sahaja Samadhi. The differentiation exists within our sentient minds and while much of what can be said with human words, is limited by our own relative labels and mortal ideas, themselves culled from our dualistic perception of reality (as we dream it into manifestation).
Logically, when there is no separation between subject and object, there is only one being and only one presence. It may be called Ishvara, YHWH, God, The Tao, Allah, The Omniself... or any other name chosen to convey the notion of The Supreme Being inherent in all that is. It is still the I Am principle and that's exactly what we all are. We personify this source of all there is. It's a miraculous thing, as "things" go. So, there is only ever one of us, as the same, symmetrical reflection of I am, exists in each of us... embodied as us. One love, one heart.
Perhaps this is why Christ said "I and my Father are One"? Or why Meher Baba could so emphatically declare, "I am God"? This then, would be the corollary of Sri Ramana Maharshi stating, "There exists nothing but the Self". Illusory as the I-thought is, it is also Sacred to the point of being the totality. The mind is left to sort out for itself, the irony of the spiritual seeking, the quest for God-realization, resulting in our inspired sadhana.
But we learn in our own unique ways, that this cannot be experienced by concept alone. Hence we continue to meditate and attune to the Light of the Sacred, the spiritual reality heretofore hidden from our awareness, effulgent within all appearances.
And effectively, as long as we are present as a finite self witnessing the apparent play of existence, the effulgence of the Godhead is obscured or seemingly locked into a pendulous continuum (like a lens coming into and going out of focus). Ergo, the union is a round-robin of altering states of coming and going, in and out of such a concentrated, entranced level of one's very transcendence over oneself.
How does the watcher what itself, watching itself? What is it that I Am resides so persistently? why does this bring us down to our earthly personas and identities? It's a paradoxical pattern, for sure! One we all share, collectively and individually. Yet, there are no permanent individuals nor any real ego-self, mere mirages witnessed by the indwelling point of the soul, the silent intermediary between the human and Divine.
Why even Sat Gurus, Buddhas and Christs shift form the sheer euphoria of Samadhi, to the personification of a defined self. Lord Sakyamuni himself declared, "I am awake." It's nothing to be upset or perplexed by, as spiritual seekers, for even YHWH projected the notion of SELF into existence, "I AM THAT I AM". 
And I agree with many other wise comments stated here, the shift from being united with God, as being one with God, is only measured in increments, by the manifestation or dissipation of the ego, the very witnessing of the I-thought (or what I term the Iso-self). When the mind stops, attention shifts modality and intent directs said attention into the vacuum of the Void, the formlessness of Brahman. And as our individuality is dissolving, we do get the direct experience and immediate sensation of not just being one with God... but actually being God. For in the truest nature of reality, all that exists is God. sigh... most of us return from this Eclipsing and fall back into our dream of being someone, doing something. Our mesmerism re-emerges as our identification with the parameters of our personal Mego.
Awareness is boundlessly Infinite... there is no watcher nor any subject to observe. If the material body is the marionette of the Atman, then the Atman is the marionette of Ishvara/God/Allah. Even Ishvara a dream of Brahman, itself without any aspect, form or substance.
quote:
I expect samadhi to continue to increase. But I wonder if I'm missing something. Is there something that's knocking me out? Or is it just a natural process of back and forth.
When there is samadhi, I'm completely happy. When there's separation I'm completely unhappy.
For clarification, I'm not talking about full on dissolution into oneness losing the body, but its samadhi just the same.
The 1970s British rock band, Yes, put this to simple lyrics in their lovely song, I Get Up, I Get Down. "In charge of who is there in charge of me. Do I look on blindly and say I see the way? The truth is written all along the page. How old will I be before I come of age for you? I get up, I get down. I get up, I get down. I get up, I get down... "
Life itself seems to go through such constant changes, rhythms and myriad phases of transformation. I feel that while the human mind is so stubbornly fixated upon observing, describing and differentiating between a seemingly endless number of ideas about such heightened/expanded states of conscious-awareness and their definitive quantification... it is clear that the innermost depths, all variables and degrees of saturation in said state, are wholly beyond any finite, rational encapsulation.
When one's perception of separateness surfaces, self is present, interacting with the collective activity of these states can be contemplated upon and fit into ideological constructs. I agree with kami, the levels or degrees of Samadhi are measured from this dichotomy we co-exist within. But that being said, This Omniversal phenomenon creates the coming and going, we can observe this and embrace of emptiness is serene and immeasurably still.
I believe that this same I-thought vanishes from one's vortexial center of focused attention, at the core and epicenter of oneself. Such an enlightenment, as being witnessed by attention upon the experience, originates from shifting into an indescribable presence, an ever-blossoming awareness. Therefore, the I-thought (as a discernible self), ceases to exist. 'Tis an oxymoron of epic proportion! 
This is blissfully-ecstatic experience is the only true reality and simultaneously, it's ungraspable, unattainable as a separate self witnessing. It appears to be conceivable on the boundaries of eclipsing and the de-eclipsing (of an Absolute vibration of Unity).
Deeper still, there is no one actively involved. No mind, no ego, no one. This is surely Nirvana, such an interphasing within the Unified Field of Indivisible Being. Quintessentially, we are the full bloom of conscious-awareness, rhythmically manifesting and unmanifesting at will. Echoes and reflections of THAT/THIS.
Tat Tvam Asi, dearest friends.
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Apr 20 2014 : 9:47:55 PM
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Wow Govinda, a truly wonderful post.
Rad, thanks for your reply I thought I'd responded previously but it appears not.
Govinda, what I was getting at was what you described here:
"Life itself seems to go through such constant changes, rhythms and myriad phases of transformation."
These phases, the rythym of life. We are ensconced within it. We are the one self that stretches out to infinity, all things, and yet there's this rythym to life that is still mysterious. Where do the forms come from? Where do they go? Its like the wind.
Much of this we cannot know. Its beyond our limited perception. We wake one day, feeling different. The march of time has brought something new.
Its always moving. My deeper question, if I am the wind and the leaf of grass, how do I not know where the wind comes from and where its going?
It IS me, I can feel. Its all me. But its a me I don't know. Not like the silence, because that is the field. But the fruit, what is being down in the field? It is also me but it remains mysterious. An intimate encounter with a stranger.
What is it I don't know? The future. All that is happening. All the forms. All the movement. There's always surprises, always novelty, always new beginnings.
I suppose its fortuitous that its easter Sunday. The celebration of rebirth into this carnal mystery. The mystery of life. Being a master of death does not automatically equate to being a master of life.
Hope this is understandable.
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Radharani
USA
843 Posts |
Posted - Apr 23 2014 : 12:44:21 AM
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Govinda,
Funny that you quoted that Yes song - I've been a big fan of theirs and when I first read Tonight's post that song immediately came to mind!
I hope everyone had a blessed Easter. |
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losing samadhi
